Original Ottoman Turkish Text

Ben itüñ gibi ḳapuñda yürürem ḫᵛâr u ẕelîl
Âsitânuñda ne bilsün beni âdem ṣanur il
Sen güneş yüzlü ile da‘vâ-yı ḥüsn eylemege
Mülzem oldı ne ḳadar şem‘ getürdiyse delîl

In English

1. Like a dog I walk at your door, abject and despised; how should people at your threshold know me, they take me for a human being.

2. The candle that set out to dispute beauty with you, sun-faced one, was silenced, however many proofs it brought.

Literary and Historical Commentary

The first couplet takes one of the oldest figures of divan poetry, the dog at the beloved's door, and gives it a small twist. The lover regards himself as no more than a dog lying at the door; yet those who see him at the threshold do not know that this dog is really a lover and take him for a human being. The depth of the abasement is conveyed by treating even a human appearance as a mistake. The word "il" at the end of the line means people, the world at large, and rhymes with "ẕelîl"; since both lines close on this sound, what we have is the first couplet (matla) of a ghazal.

The second couplet is a courtroom scene. The candle set out to compete with the beloved in beauty and put forward its own brightness as proof, but since its opponent was sun-faced it was "mülzem", silenced, and lost the case. The word "delîl" means both proof and guide; because the candle's light is a guide that lights the way, this second sense enters the couplet of its own accord. That a candle's light cannot be seen before the sun is the ground of the verdict.

Sehî says that he chose these two couplets from Emîrî's "ghazals" but does not give the whole poem. That the couplets belong to the same ghazal is shown by the rhyme: ẕelîl, il, delîl. In some manuscripts of Sehî the word "yürürem" in the first line reads "gezerem". Âşık Çelebi, Latîfî and Kınalızâde do not include these couplets. Who the poet was is told in the article Emîrî (Seyyid Mahmûd).

Bibliography

Online sources